


Shadow Boxer

by J_Nerd



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: Brawler, Erin you useless gay, F/F, Fight Club - Freeform, Holtzmann needs better hobbies, Hurt feelings, Hurt/Comfort, Underground Fights, angsty fluff, eventual happy fluff, or anger outlets, protective mama Patty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-22
Updated: 2016-12-19
Packaged: 2018-08-16 15:32:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8107879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/J_Nerd/pseuds/J_Nerd
Summary: Holtzmann keeps it a secret for a reason, this odd, inherently dangerous compulsion that arises whenever the noise of the world becomes too much. In the ring, she can think. In the ring, all that matters is her opponent and what her next move will be. But oftentimes secrets held so closely to the vest become the most dangerous because win or lose, bruises are slow to fade in the light of day.orWhen Erin discovers Holtzmann participates in underground fighting rings and loses her damn mind.Based on a piece of Holtzmann fanart I came across on tumblrhttp://snowprincess-artist.tumblr.com/post/150606015666/whoops-i-accidentally-doodled-holtz-getting-into





	1. Chapter 1

_Hands up. Always up._

Sweat trickles down the slope of Holtzmann's bare back, gathering in the band of her black sports bra, soaking it. Sometimes it gets in her eyes from the rivulets sliding down her forehead. Makes her blink hard and squint, but she can't afford to take her eyes off the woman bouncing on the balls of her feet across from her. Keep moving. Duck and weave. That's what she'd learned over the years. It was harder to hit a moving target, even one as small as her. And if she kept moving maybe she would—

The woman moves lightning fast. Holtz reacts, already skipping back. Not fast enough. The fist connecting with her ribs bends her in half. Her breath leaves her, if just for a moment. Two more fists come in quick succession: kidneys twice, jaw last. The jaw doesn't connect, thank God. Same can't be said about the other two.

Holtzmann grunts and moves with the momentum of the strike, lessening it fractionally while tilting away from the fist careening towards her face. Her rib wouldn't break tonight. The woman’s strike was meant more to stun than damage. Lucky her. The bruise to come would be monstrous.

Quick as a snake, the engineer whips out a strike that takes her opponent across the face. It’s a solid blow. Spit and blood fly from the connection of her stinging knuckles against skin. The woman twists to the side and totters. Sways. Doesn't go down.

 _Shit_ , Holtzmann grimaces, dancing away before her opponent could lunge.

Her breath is loud in her ears. The scrape of her booted feet fills the space between heartbeats. Around the two dueling women a crowd one hundred thick cheer and jeer in equal volume. It's hard to tell who's rooting for her, but then again, it doesn't really matter. Holtz is here for herself and herself alone. This was personal...kind of. She certainly didn't have anything against the woman she was fighting, it was just—

Holtz barely ducks under the swipe that would have laid her out cold. She shakes her head, dislodging her distractions. Couldn’t think about that now. Couldn’t think about Erin. Couldn’t think about their argument and how angry the two had been and the things they said—

Contact.

Lights flash headlight-bright behind Holtzmann's eyes. She spins and hits the floor, the irony tang of blood blooming on her tongue like a hot flower. The world rotates around her, distorting the roar of the crowd. A steel-toed boot sinks into the soft flesh of her exposed stomach. Holtz upheaves, spattering the concrete with both vomit and blood. She rolls to a stop a short distance away gasping and arching against the pain. The crowd roars, loving the carnage.

 _Get up!_ she seethes, bearing bloody teeth in a feral snarl. _Get up!_

There's no ref. There's no one to stop the fight from getting ugly. That fell on the attendance of friends who could jump in and pry the opponents apart. Holtzmann has no friends here tonight, at least none who would jump to her aid. This is all on her, and that understanding shoots steel down her spine. This was her choice. Stay down or fight. Cower or rise to the occasion. Give in or step up.

She can sense the woman approaching. She knows what's coming. A small grin pulls at her bloody lips. _Coming, yeah, I know what's coming_ , she thinks and flops onto her side, making herself look as vulnerable as possible.

Three steps.

Two.

One.

Out of the corner of her eye, Holtzmann watches the woman rear her foot back ready to deliver the final blow. Kick to the head. Curb-stomp, being the proper term. Instant unconsciousness. Possible death. That was the name of the game in this ring. It’s why Holtzmann chose it. She needed the adrenaline rush to take the edge off.

Just as the woman swings her foot, triumphant grin in place, Holtz springs into action. Her body curls around the descending boot like a sandbag, dampening the momentum and damage. It still scoots her back almost two feet, but she's ready and waiting.

With practiced ease, Holtzmann kicks herself up onto her shoulders, wraps her ankles around the back of the woman's neck, and brings her down. Hard. Holtz's opponent now finds herself winded on the flat of her back with a skinny, bloody, filthy blonde straddling her waist.

“Say good night, Gracie.” Holtzmann's wrapped fist connects with the woman directly between the eyes. Her head snaps back, eyes rolling, out like a light.

Victory flushes Holtz for five solid minutes while she staggers to her feet and accepts her winnings from a pissed-off looking bookie before ringing hollow in the ache of her bruised body and the throb of her face. Holtz moves out of the deserted building, threading her way through a crowd reeking of cheap booze, cigarettes, and weed who no longer see her. Another fight has begun, fresh entertainment for the masses. In five minutes time, she was already old news.

Outside, the cold air highlights throbbing sections of skin. Holtzmann is hesitant to touch her face, already knowing what she’ll find. Busted lip. Probably a blackening eye. Inhaling hurts...maybe a cracked rib. Her back is one big ache from being thrown onto the floor...twice. It’s little comfort that most of her injuries could be hidden under clothing, but her face? That was another matter.

_Guess I’ll have to come up with something convincing for this stupidity, won’t I?_

Leaning back against the rain-slick brick, Holtzmann closes her eyes and rakes her sweaty hair out of her face. This had been a terrible idea, but at least she can think again. Or more clearly at least, which was nice for a change. In the glow of the weak streetlamp, she inspects her wrapped hands. They, like the rest of her, bear the markings of her battle. Blood dampens the valleys between her knuckles. Or was that sweat? Hard to tell. There would be bruises along the webbing of her fingers too from the wrappings, easily hidden under her fingerless gloves, but bruises all the same.

“I'm a fucking mess...” She breathes out a cloud of vapor in a gusty exhale before shouldering her duffel and striking towards home. A shower was needed. Hot water would help. Maybe she could think more...maybe that's dangerous...maybe it's needed. She didn't know.

Forty-five minutes later Holtz creeps through the back door of the firehouse like a goddamn burglar and not a permanent resident and celebrated Ghostbuster. Thank God she oiled the hinges a week ago else wise her entrance would have likely woken the entire house.

Hand on her ribs, she leans against the counter, catching her breath before attempting the last legs of her journey. Adrenaline was a fickle bitch. Helped in a pinch. Deserted you when you needed the natural painkillers. Glancing around, Holtz searches for where Abby kept the Motrin and finds the bottle in a cabinet, swallowing three pills. That would help in about thirty minutes. In the meantime, she just had to suck it up.

Next step was getting into the bathroom and pray one wakes up. Thanks to funding from the mayor, one-quarter of the second floor and all of the third had been renovated into apartments. It’s towards her personal bathroom and bedroom on the second floor she now moves with ginger care, threading her way through the dark firehouse with practiced ease. Holtzmann makes her destination without creaking too many boards and would have fist pumped in victory had she been sure the motion would make her pass out.

Undressing while the water settled to the proper scalding temperature, Holtzmann inspects herself in the mirror wearing only her sports bra and briefs. It wasn’t good. Not terrible, but she looks like someone took a bat to her torso and back. Thanks to fair skin, she bruises immediately and violently, her body dotted with black pools of flesh rimmed in bands of yellow like sand on a beach.

“I look like a topographic map of Minnesota. Look, I can count the lakes!”

Grunting in acceptance of her current state and gallows humor, Holtz starts the arduous process of fully disrobing when she hears a stomach-dropping sound. Footsteps in the hall. She freezes, prays it’s just Abby getting something from downstairs. Then the handle giggles and she silently berates herself for not locking the fucking door!

“Please be a ghost,” she pleads under her breath, frozen in mid-reach for her bra.

“Holtz?”

 _Shit._ Of all the people in the firehouse, it had to be Erin.

There’s a pause while Erin adjusted from the shadowy hall to the bright bathroom. It feels like a lifetime, like a breath before a storm. When Holtz hears a sharp intake of air she knows she’s well and truly fucked.

“Oh my god!” Erin gasps in horror. It wasn’t a surprise she becomes almost frantic in the space between heartbeats. “Jil, what the hell happened?! Were you attacked? Oh god, we need to call someone. Jesus, look at you!"

For a solid second, Holtzmann contemplates making something up. It wouldn’t be hard. They lived in the city. The city was dangerous, especially for women. But Jillian Holtzmann would never cheapen or disregard the victims of actual assault by faking her own. Especially when hers had been intentional.

“I’m fine,” she answers brittley without turning. The cold shoulder she left the firehouse with hours prior hadn’t thawed as much as she’d hoped. “What are you doing awake?”

“The hell you are! You look like someone hit you with a car!” Erin throws back, closing the distance between the two in four quick strides. Holtzmann still won’t turn, eyes glued on the floor between her feet. “Tell me what happened. Were you mugged?”

“No.”

“Do we need to call the police?”

“No.”

“Damn it, look at me!”

Holtzmann sighs and turns to meets Erin's rightfully placed worry head on and doesn’t miss the jolt of shock seeing her face causes the other woman. Erin’s hands slide to her mouth, eyes as wide as saucers. She reaches out as if to touch, but Holtzmann draws back. Half of her wanted to dive into Erin and encircle her in a hug and never let go, to say she was sorry for how they left things. Half of her wanted to shove past the physicist and head to her room, shower be damned. Holtz can do neither, pinned in place by the gravity of Erin’s intent blue eyes.

“Oh, _Jillian_ …”

It's all Erin can do to keep herself from tearing up when her gaze skips across the purpling puddles of abuse darkening Holtz's skin to the ruin of her face. Well, ruin was a bit of an exaggeration. There was nothing ruined about it. Just battered and bloody. Her lip was swelling and split. Dried blood stains the column of her neck. A cut above her eyebrow paints half her face in crimson streaks, and the skin of her left eye was already puffy, a sure sign it would be black and purple by morning.

The engineer schools her face into what she hopes is a lighthearted expression but suspects it comes across smug. “Don’t freak. It was just a little workout. You should see the other guy," she tries to jest, aiming clumsy finger guns at Erin and leaning against the bathroom counter with forced casualness.

“ _Other guy?_ ” Erin repeats, stressing the words. “You were in a fight?”

“Needed to clear my head after I left," Holtzmann admits tightly, staring over Erin's shoulder rather than looking her square in the face. Couldn't do that. Couldn't see the concern and worry. Not tonight. “So I went to a place I used to frequent back in the day.”

“You went to a bar?”

“You…could call it that.”

“And did what? Picked a fight with the biggest person there?” Erin says it in jest, but her stomach clenches when Holtz doesn’t laugh off the absurdity of her statement.

“Something like that...”

The admission rocks the brunette. A weird kind of static fills her. “What?”

“I said—“

“I heard you the first time. You...did this to yourself?”

This time, Holtz does look at her, and the steely gaze of the engineer makes Erin physically blanch. “No, some woman named Nikki did. Big brute of a bitch. Well-known in the fighting circuit around Harlem.”

“Fighting…circuit?”

Holtzmann tears herself away, not wanting to have this conversation but knowing she can't exactly turn back time or hide what was plain for Erin to see. Might as well clear the air in the process, too. “Back in grad school, I needed an outlet. Tried a lot of things. Some worked, others didn’t. Found the fighting rings by chance through a series of acquaintances. We just called them the rings. Like Fight Club, only you can talk about it and it's not run by a pretentious asshat.”

Erin stands frozen, unable to fully process what she’s hearing. Fighting rings? Holtz? No, there wasn't a violent bone in the engineer's body....but then again, Erin can't exactly be sure of that. Holtz didn't have a temper like most people. She was more driven. More focused. More apt to internalize...

 _Oh_...

“It was a good release. Got the energy and the frustration out,” Holtzmann says as she further disrobes, heedless of whether or not Erin is still in the room. Wasn’t like it was anything she hadn’t already seen. “And hey, it was all in good fun, you know? Just a bunch of dumbasses knocking heads and being stupid. And when you grow up in a neighborhood like I did, you learn a thing or two about taking a hit and dolling them out when necessary."

“You went to a fight club tonight?” The question is small and spoken quietly. Holtz still hears it over the rush of the shower and can’t help but pick up on what she assumes is disgust.

“Wow, you have good ears,” she laughs none too kindly. It was mean of her. She shouldn't have, but it just kind of came out. That always happened when her anger got the best of her. Holtz was impulsive to a fault, and she didn't have to turn to know Erin's cheeks were flushing.

“So that's how you deal with things now?” There’s accusation in Erin’s tone that raises Holtzmann’s hackles. “Go and throw your fists around like a heathen?”

The engineer looks up sharply, eyes narrowing. “Is that judgment I hear, Doctor Gilbert?”

“Damn right there is!” Erin explodes, in awe of the stupidity of the genius standing so brazenly before her. “What the hell were you thinking?! Did you even _think_? You could have been hurt worse than you already are! You could have died!”

“Dramatics are your thing, Gilbert, not mine. Chill out.” _Fuck_ , Holtz thinks, _that was a stupid thing to say_.

“Me being dramatic?” Erin leans back in disbelief, eyebrows shooting so high into her hairline they might have leaped off her forehead and embedded in the ceiling. “Me? I'm not the one slumming it up in fight pits and sulking back home like a kicked dog trying to avoid her girlfriend! The least you could do is not be a child about this!”

She's back in the ring again, only this time her opponent isn't someone she wants to hit. Never Erin. So then why is she shaking? Why are her eyes brimming with furious tears? Why is she shouting for Erin to get out and then shoving the taller woman out of the steam-filled bathroom before slamming and locking the door behind her?

Holtzmann looks down at her hands pressed against the metal door. When had she moved? Why was there blood on her hands? Was it Erin's? Panic fills her. She kicks back and stumbles into the hot water. The shock is both welcoming and shattering. Heat floods her, but there was already water pouring down her face, tears cutting molten lines through her skin.

Crumpling, Holtzmann curls into herself on the tiled floor. The shower beats down around her, turning the water pink as it washes her clean. Her skin turns red, reacting to the heat, or was it the sobs she buries behind her hands? Hard to tell. When had everything become so fucked up?

Outside, Erin presses her back against the door like it’s the only thing keeping her standing. Her temples pound from clenching her teeth. Tears leak out of the corner of her eyes. Down the hall, she hears the telltale creak of floorboards and knows who’s come to investigate.

“Erin?” Abby calls, worry creasing her brow.

At her back, Patty shares an equally worried expression. “Baby? Everything okay?”

Erin can't answer. She couldn’t even explain to herself how things had gone so wrong. It seemed like one minute she and Holtz were fine and the next they weren’t. Night and day. Her head was still spinning, trying to catch up, and she hates teetering on the edge of the unknown, feeling like she was losing her best friend.

Erin attempts to choke out a response when Abby asks again but can't and runs instead. It was her M.O. She always ran when things got hard, and they were hard now. She wouldn't go far. Just to the alley where she could think and process and cry in peace. Abby would follow. She always did. But for a time Erin would have the quiet to herself where she could break.

 

* * *

 

 

“Mind if I join you?”

Erin doesn’t acknowledge her best friend, continuing to stare at the ground between where her feet dangling over the edge of the dumpster. Abby accepts the silence as a neutral answer and does her best to climb up and sit beside Erin, grunting and swearing at her vertically challenged body until she’s situated.

“You just had to pick a place to sit that’s off the ground. Way to be sensitive to short-people needs.” Abby is rewarded by a wan smile from Erin that’s almost immediately swallowed by the sad fall of her face.

Tear stains are fresh on her cheeks. More come after a moment. Abby lets her cry, nudging her every now and then with her shoulder to let Erin know she wasn’t alone. Inside the building, Patty guards the bathroom door, making sure Holtz doesn't go anywhere when she emerges.

Another ten minutes pass before Erin finally speaks, voice rough. “I don’t understand,” she hiccups, dragging her sleeve across her nose and sniffing hard. “Why would she do something like that? Why would she put her life and health at risk?"

Abby crosses her arms and leans back, looking up at the sliver of black sky she can glimpse between buildings. “Between you and me? This isn’t the first time.” Beside her, Erin shifts to look at her, eyes round and wet. “You need to understand this was before you came back into our lives. I can’t really speak for anything after that point, but things like this happened while Holtz and I shared a lab back at the Higgins Institute. I know of at least three instances where she went to fighting rings. Each time was after a pretty big argument with me. She’d come home all broken and bloody, and I’d just patched her up, and we both continued on with our lives as if it never happened.”

“That...that’s not healthy, Abby,” Erin sniffs.

“I know, and I realize it makes me look like a terrible friend. But seeing her like that...I couldn’t bring myself to confront her. What you do with your life is your business, right? That’s kind of the mentality I had, and Holtz seemed fine afterward. Whatever tension there was between us dissolved almost overnight.”

Abby finally turns to face Erin fully, folding her legs in front of her as she does. “Something tells me that, despite the circumstances being a bit different, deep down, Holtz expected you to act the same way I did. To just kind of roll with the punches, no pun intended, and leave her be. Fight forgotten. Thing is, you didn’t because you’re a sane person and care.”

“But so do you,” Erin counters.

“I love Holtz, but not in the same way you do. I love her as a close friend and colleague. You love her as a lover and partner. Those are two totally different types of love.” Abby stops to let her words sink in before continuing. “Want to know my theory? I think she’s scared.”

Erin scoffs, brushing the comment off. “Of what?"

“My guess? That people will walk away. That _you_ will walk away. I’ve seen a parade of women leading to and from Holtzmann in the years I’ve known her, and as far as I can tell, you and this little family of ours are the only constant things in her life. She doesn’t know how to really voice what’s bothering her, so she finds a way to vent her frustration and sort her mind out in a really unconventional and dangerous way, but hey, this is Holtzmann we’re talking about. So far it’s worked. Until tonight when someone finally confronted her.”

“Of course I confronted her! Why wouldn’t I? She’s my girlfriend, and I care!” Erin realizes how that might come across and quickly amends. “Not…not that you didn’t care about her. I know you did and still do. I just mean—“

“Slow your roll, Ghost Girl,” Abby laughs good-naturedly, holding up a forestalling hand. “I know what you mean. Yes, I still care, but you care differently, and that’s fine.”

“I love her, Abby.” Erin puts her head in her heads, exhaling a cloud of steam. It was cold tonight. “I love her so much, and seeing her like that…I just can’t wrap my head around it. And I feel like it’s my fault for not…”

Erin falls silent, hands folded in her lap.

“You want to clue me in on what’s going on between you two?” Abby gently prompts, scooting closer.

 _Not really,_ Erin wants to say, but this was Abby. Even after their long separation, she was still her best friend. They’d worked hard to put the past behind them, building on the ashes of the old. “Holtz and I got into an argument.”

“I think you’re understating things, but continue,” Abby says, leaning back on her hands.

“Okay, fine, it wasn’t just an argument. It was…pretty significant.”

“Care to share what about, or is this a private couples matter?”

Erin ducks her head, the darkness hiding her flush. “It was about me. I’ve…Abby, you of all people know my track record with relationships. I mean, we all saw how wonderfully the whole Phil situation worked out.”

Abby grimaces but doesn’t say anything. Didn’t need to. That whole relationship was just a lot of bad choices rolled up into a bundle of forced necessity. Not exactly one of Erin’s worst choices, but it was a bad one all around.

“And I know I’ve had time to sort myself out since then, but I’m still skittish and new to,” gestures to herself as if it would explain things, which, for Abby, it does, “this. All of this. And Holtz…God…she’s—I can’t put it into words. She’s captivating and infuriating and a genius but so stupid sometimes and quirky and loving and tender. I won’t say perfect. No one is, but she’s the realest thing I’ve ever had this close to me save for you, and I just…get scared. That I’m not good enough. That I’m dragging her down and dampening her somehow. She’s electricity. I’m a wet blanket. I don’t party or dance or flirt like she does. We’re so different and I just feel…inadequate.”

“Honey,” Abby takes Erin’s hands before she can continue, patting it sympathetically. “You’re an introvert. We all know this, and no one is trying to make you change.”

“I know,” Erin sighs. “And Holtz is an extrovert—“

“Really?” The shorter woman gives her friend a look, head tilted in that special way Abby does when she wants people to reevaluate something.

Erin blinks, brow furrowing. “Yes?”

When Abby laughs it’s not condescending or mean-spirited. Simply genuine. “Baby, no. _Patty_ is an extrovert. _I’m_ kind of an introvert-extrovert switch. Holtz is an introvert, like you. She might play cool in a crowd and roll like a Casanova, but how often does she actually leave the lab unless there’s food or a bust involved? Who does most of the talking to clientele? Me, I’ll answer that one for you. How often does she head out to bars or clubs, and when we’re out, who’s the most ready to head back home?”

“I figured that was just because she’s a workaholic.”

“Well, you’re not exactly wrong, but Holtz moves around in her own world most of the time. You don’t have to be shy to be an introvert, Erin. That’s just how you are.”  

“Wonderful,” Erin groans, face in her hands.

“So I’m guessing your insecurities came into conversation at some point?” Abby prompts, moving the conversation back to its original topic.

“Yeah. A lot of ‘worthiness’ was thrown around. More like me doing the throwing. Holtz got angry. Said there wasn’t some imaginary meter I had to reach in order to date someone like her. Said she dated women she found appealing and interesting.”

Abby winces. “Ooo poor choice of words.”

Erin nods, picking at her thumb nail. “Yeah. It just kind of snowballed from there.”

“You know what I’m going to say, right?” Abby asks, unfolding her legs to get circulation moving again.

“That we need to talk?”

“That you need to talk, exactly. You’re both idiots, but Holtz does have a point, Erin. You need to stop tearing yourself down. I’ve been telling you that for years. Now your girlfriend is saying the same thing. Hell, pretty sure Patty and Kevin say it too…though Kevin in his own weird way.”

“It’s hard breaking old habits.”

“But not impossible.” Abby jumps down with a grunt, dusting off her slightly damp jeans. “I’m going to head in and make some hot chocolate. You coming or do you need some more time?”

“I’ll be there in a bit. Just want to clear my head a little more before tackling the last half of this terrible night.”

“Got yah, Ghost Girl.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry this took as long as it did to get done. I don't make it a habit of abandoning work, but this one got away from me. Hope you all enjoy! Happy holidays!

“Man, I don’t know what the two of you are doing, but it ain’t good for either of you,” Patty says to the closed door she’s been leaning against for the past fifteen minutes. She can still hear the water running, but Holtzmann hasn’t made a peep since shoving Erin out of the bathroom and locking the door behind her.

“Bunch of craziness, no doubt. You do realize you have something great in our resident string-bean? And she has something great in you, too. I know whatever’s going on is hard, but you gotta keep that channel of conversation going. You gotta…”

Patty’s halfway through her most recent trail of relationship advice ranting when the door suddenly opens, putting her off balance. She rights herself by grabbing the frame and kicking forward, but it’s enough of a distraction for Holtz to slip under the taller woman’s raised arms like a fish gliding between rocks and stagger into the hallway. That’s about as far as her bid for freedom takes her.

“Nu-uh,” the historian catches the smaller woman by the upper arm, grip firm. “You ain’t getting away that fast. Not gonna scurry off to your room without at least giving your poor Patty a reasonable explanation as to why you are—“

When Holtzmann turns—securing her towel by overlapping and tucking the ends between her breasts— it’s all Patty can do to keep her cry of shock locked between her teeth. No one, save for Erin, had seen the damage two ham-sized fists had done to the engineer. Luckily, Patty’s face is expressive enough to convey everything her mouth currently couldn’t.

“Jesus, baby,” she breathes, releasing the tight coil of her shoulders as she gently takes Holtzmann’s chin and turns her into the light. “What the hell happened?”

“Something stupid, as always,” Holtz replies tiredly, not making eye-contact.

Patty takes her by the shoulders, angling the shower-warmed woman back towards bathroom so she can get a clearer picture of the damage. It’s not a pretty sight by any stretch of the imagination.

“You tell me right now who I need to kill and it’s done. No questions asked. Say the word.”

If Holtzmann hadn’t witnessed firsthand the seriousness reinforcing Patty’s words and the stony set of her jaw, the comment would have seemed lighthearted. It wasn’t, however, and that was just a little too intense for Holtzmann tonight.

“I know yah got my back.” The engineer attempts a wink that doesn’t exactly work with one eye already swelled half-shut. It just looked like she was taking a long time blinking.

“I ain’t joking, Holtzmann. If someone did this to you, I want to know where I can find them. Don’t like seeing someone I care about looking so rough.”

“I know, Pattycake, but don’t worry. The other girl didn’t look any better.”

For half a heartbeat, Patty stares down at the smaller woman, brown eyes working her own calculation. When the wrinkled crease of her brow finally slackens and she exhales there’s a pinched kind of understanding in her posture. She stands tall again, sucking her teeth.

“You fighting ain’t a good thing, Holtzy.”

“Preaching to the choir,” the blonde shrugs.

“No, listen to me. I know what goes down in those rings. Don’t ask me how,” she says before Holtz can interject with her obvious surprise. “I just do, and we don’t need to get a call one night you’ve been found in a ditch somewhere beaten half to death. Or, God forbid, the police showing up because we need to identify your body.”

“It’s fine, Patty. And I’m fine.” Holtz pushes away, not wanting to have this conversation. She begins her less than steady trek down the hall when hit with a sudden episode of dizziness. Recognizing the symptoms of a possible concussion—punch-drunk, how wonderful—Holtz knows if she doesn’t find a place to collapse soon her body would pick a spot and drop.

“You ain’t fine. You’re the farthest thing from fine.” Patty persistently follows, gesturing with her hands. “This you isn’t fine. This you can barely stand or see out of one eye.”

“Am too fine, and can too stand,” the engineer retorts sloppily. Uh-oh…when had her tongue gone limp behind her teeth? Better yet, when did the hallway start tilting?

Not good.

Shaking her head, Holtz soldiers on stubbornly, hand on the wall for balance and guidance. If she could get to her room and lay down everything would be fine because then gravity wouldn’t be trying to yank her down to the floor.

Wait— _shit_ …nope, she was falling.

 The sensation took time to register—falling in slow motion was a new experience—as was the feeling of strong arms grabbing her just before impact and the unmistakable draft of her towel slipping free.

“I got you, baby. I got you,” Patty hums in her ear, bearing the slight woman’s weight with ease. Adjusting her grip, she drapes Holtz’s left arm over her shoulders and loops her free arm around the engineer’s waist. Holtz’s wobbly legs are of little help, leaving Patty to do most of the work.

“S’foggy Pat,” Holtzmann slurs, damp hair swinging in messy curls around her face as the two make slow progress down the hall.

“Taking too many hits to the head will do that.”

“Least I…won.”

“Glad for that, baby girl. Glad for that.”

Making it to Holtz’s room was the easy part. Getting her into the bed across a floor strewn with landmines—both figurative and literal—was going to be the real ordeal.

“Hey girl, I know you’re fading out on me, but please let a sister know if she’s going to accidentally set off a bomb in here. I’d like to keep my limbs attached.” Patty doesn’t get an answer or at least one she can understand. “Man, the things you do for the people you love.”

Teeth gritted, Patty carefully maneuvers herself and the limp engineer through the minefield, scooting machines and blinking circuit boards out of her way to clear a path with ginger ease. Nothing goes poof, as Holtz would say. Thank God for that.

Holtzmann’s bed is a queen-sized mattress situated between two windows with a rumpled, space-themed comforter overtop dinosaur sheet. Patty fumbles for a light, praying the switch her finger finds doesn’t have some weird dual purpose. When a bedside lamp clicks on without any poofs she allows herself to exhale.

“Like being a member of the bomb squad,” she mutters before raising her voice. “Holtzy? You with me?” Silence. The engineer sags limply, held aloft solely by Patty’s strength alone. “Or not. Okay. That’s not worrying. Nope.”

In a fluid motion, Patty scoops Holtz up and gently sets her atop her unmade comforter, not bothered in the least by her nakedness. The four of them had lived and worked together long enough that something as mundane as nudity barely registered…so long as you weren’t Erin. What bothers Patty and leaves her standing in momentary shock, however, is what she sees on display in the beam of lamplight.

Patty has seen beatings. Seen the aftermath brought about by fists, feet, and cheap weapons. Having grown up in New York, she is well aware of the darker currents that run through her beloved city. They were like undertows. Avoidable in certain regards, but they could literally be anywhere and pop up at any time. Holtz bore the markings of that undertow, and it makes Patty’s stomach clench, taking her back to times rather forgotten. Unconsciously, her right hand drifts to a hidden scar running along her lower ribs, the echoes of cold pain still with her to this day.

Covering Holtz with her sheet, the historian’s march back downstairs is a driven one, almost bordering on angry. Her mind keeps slipping between unhappy memories and looking at the welts pooling on Holtz’s pale body. It wasn’t right. None of this was right.

She finds Abby making hot chocolate in the kitchen but says nothing when the researcher cocks an eyebrow at her, heading instead for the cabinet where they kept a spare medical kit. Abby watches her collogue closely. Out of the four of them, Patty had the greatest knowledge of first aid next to Holtzmann. If something was seriously wrong, Abby knew Patty would tell them.

Supplies in hand, the historian is about to jog back upstairs when the back door opens with a breath of biting wind, and a red-nosed, shivering Erin steps into the building. The brunette has enough time to register the two women—nodding shyly to Abby and smiling thinly at Patty—before a red and white medical box is being shoved roughly into her arms. Taken by surprise, Erin fumbles and almost drops the box in a comical juggle that ends with her clutching it awkwardly to her chest.

“I’m sorry—why is this…can you—wait w-what’s going on?” Erin’s answer comes when Patty takes her by the shoulders and guides her non-too-gently to the stairs. Abby follows as a bemused onlooker. “Hey! Now—wait!” the physicist protests, twisting out of Patty’s grip on the first stair. “What exactly do you think I’m going to do?”

“You’re gonna to fix things,” Patty answers, pointing to the second floor.

Erin looks down at the box and then back at her waiting friends, swallowing hard. “I’m not…really qualified for this—“

“Not hearing any excuses tonight, Gilbert,” the taller woman rumbles, crossing her arms over her chest. The set of her face alone tells Erin arguing is futile. “Don’t come back down until you patch shit up for good.”

“But I don’t know what to do.” It sounded like a whine, which makes Erin wince. How old was she again?

“You’re a smart woman. You’ll figure it out.”

“What if she needs a hospital?” Erin asks quietly, unable to lift her eyes from the floor.

“If I thought she needed it I’d have called an ambulance. Upstairs. Now.”

Seeing no way out of her entrapment and feeling as though this was Karma coming back to bite her, Erin slowly turns and begins her ascent to the second floor. She can feel Patty and Abby watching her and swallows the knot of anxiety in her throat. Once again, how old was she?

Reaching the end of the hall on the second floor, Erin pauses in the doorway. It’s not like she hasn’t ever been in Holtz’s room before. Despite Erin opting for them to conduct their sleeping in her room on the third floor—mainly because Holtz’s room was perhaps the biggest hazard currently residing in New York City next to her lab—the physicist spent enough time with her partner in that chaotic, tangled mess reading while Holtz tinkered or participating in more carnal pleasures. Tonight, however, the apartment felt like a cave with a dragon looming at its end.

An island of light floats in a sea of blue-black, the outline of a bed and the human sitting hunched on one edge illuminated by a small desk lamp. Holtz’s hair resembles a halo against the lamplight, cascading in rare form down her arms and back. Erin bites into her lower lip, nails catching on the rough surface of the box when she flexes her fingers. She’s unsure how to proceed. Walking forward would be best, one foot at a time, but to what end?

Holtz’s angry expression flashes in her mind’s eye, making her retreat. In the short amount of time the Ghostbusters have been a cohesive unit, Erin had never seen such a severe and frightening look on the younger woman’s face. At least not one directed at her. Erin feels the echo of strong fingers on her upper arms as she’s shoved bodily from the bathroom. The crack of the door slamming shut booms like thunder in her mind. It might as well have been a thirty-foot thick wall springing up between them. Impenetrable. Cold.

Erin swallows, about to lose her nerve, when she hears a gusty sigh deteriorate into a pained whimper. The sound stops her heart and cements her feet to the floor.

“Sorry about that, Patty,” Holtz mumbles without looking up. “Guess I kind of blacked out there for a few. One too many knocks to the…” Holtzmann trails off, lifting her head and noticing the presence with her for the first time.

Erin waffles in the doorway, silhouetted by the light from the hall. It takes her a couple of tried to speak. “Patty sent me to…um…patch things—you—up.” Her tone is a forced kind of light but about as convincing as a set of wax wings. She’s flying too close to the sun. Any second now, she’d fall.

“Just leave the box,” Holtz mutters, staring down at her hands dangling between her knees. Was that shame or anger burning in her cheeks? Hard to tell. Probably both. Thank god for her curtain of hair and what it could hide.

Hearing those words, something in the physicist cracks. Between Holtz’s dismissiveness and her refusal to make eye-contact, Erin feels for all the world like she should just do what she’s told and leave. It was a kneejerk response learned from years of scuttling around people who never saw her as an equal. Clearly, she wasn’t wanted or needed right now and forcing the issue would likely make things worse. But then again, things were already worse if this was how Holtzmann was going to start coming home…

_Oh, fuck this shit._

Scowling deep enough to knit her eyebrows together, Erin stands to her full height, shoulders squaring. She doesn’t so much walk the short distance to Holtzmann’s bed as she marches.

“I don’t think you’re in any shape to make that decision.”

“I think I’m in pretty good shape, all things considered.” Holtz tries to play off her awkward unease by patting the side of her stomach, miss judges and winds up slapping a fresh bruise. She hisses in sudden pain, teeth bared.

Erin can’t find it in her to roll her eyes. Not now. Instead, she stops just shy of the bed and stares down at the hunched blonde. Rare were the moments Holtz let her hair down, but rarer still were her bouts of pouting. Holtzmann wasn’t a pouter. Doing it for fun or farce is one thing— pretending to be upset when she hid a smile behind her eyes—but seldom were the moments when her mood truly soured enough her smile died and her body went still.

Erin takes the opportunity to sit beside the engineer, box balanced on her thighs. “Are you going to fight me if I try to help you?” She realizes a moment too late her poor choice of words and bites into her cheek so hard she almost bleeds.

Holtz shifts a look at her, eyebrow cocked. “Are you asking if I’m gonna to hit you?”

“That came out wrong.”

“Yep,” she says, popping the “p”.

“Holtz,” Erin sighs, not exactly knowing where to go with this. “For once, don’t be obtusely stubborn. Let me help you.”

Her shrug is slight enough Erin almost doesn’t catch it, but Holtzmann turns, using her arms to lift and settle her body. Her movements are slow and pained as she scoots back until her back rests against the wall behind her, knees slightly bent.

Erin stops herself from following, wanting to get a good look at her ‘patient’, recording what she sees and locking it away.

The full extent of the damage has seeped through the younger woman’s skin like blood soaking through cheesecloth. Holtz’s bruises are dark, angry welts, some larger than the spread of Erin’s hand. Holtz’s stomach seems to have borne the brunt of the abuse. From the slope of her right hip to the dip between her breasts lingers a vicious stripe of dark flesh. Erin feels her gorge rise. It looked like a boot print, the impression of the laces and stitching echoed in black and red. A second bruise the side of a dinner place takes up Holtzmann’s smooth left thigh. Smaller abrasions speckle her like ink blots, stopping just shy of her knees. And that was just her body. Her face was another topographic map of visceral abuse. 

Anger banks in Erin, hot and sudden. Intentional or not, someone did this to Holtzmann. Some hurt her. It repeats again and again in the physicist’s mind until she’s to the point of seeing red. Someone hurt Holtz. Someone touched the woman she loved.

“If you clench any harder I’m pretty sure the pressure between your butt cheeks could create a diamond.”

Erin lets the tasteless attempt at humor go and exhales through her nose, wrestling to release the tension in her shoulders, back, hands, and jaw. Looking away to blink her vision clear, Erin misses the flash of distress creasing Holtzmann’s brow—there one minute and smoothed the next in the space between heartbeats. They were supposed to be angry with each other, right?  

“You’re a mess,” Erin finally says, setting the box down between them and opening it. She knew enough about treating wounds to know disinfectant came first and grabs a few swabs.

“That kind of happens when you go toe-to-toe with a six foot Amazon,” Holtz shoots back, uncharacteristically grim, gaze unnervingly bright in the light of the bedside lamp.

Erin holds that steely gaze for a few beats as if testing some unseen barrier between them before stalling her medical ministrations by replacing her hands in her lap. “I think we need to talk.”

“Not really in a talkative mood,” Holtz says flatly. She’s unable to maintain her stare and shifts her gaze onto something else.

“Good, because I don’t really need you to respond. Just listen,” Erin bites back, still feeling hot under the collar. Holtzmann, for her part, seems taken aback by the brusqueness in her girlfriend’s tone but remains quiet.

After wrestling the flare of her emotions into something more cooled and controlled, Erin begins again. “I know why you went out and did…that,” the physicist motions at Holtzmann. “I might not understand but I can see the logic behind the action. It’s a form of release to you, strange though it may seem to me. I also know it was prompted because of the argument we had earlier, and I…want to talk about that. About why I said what I said.”

Holtzmann can’t help but sigh and look down at her bruised hands, each knuckle tinted a livid purple. They’d had this talk before, and it always ended the same. Erin would apologize for being irrational. Holtzmann would apologize for not understanding her cues. They would hug. Time would rest, but it was like putting a balm on a deep infection. It was only a surface-deep treatment.

But Erin seemed to have something else in mind. By the rigid set of her body, the engineer could tell she was bracing for something and felt her curiosity pique in a morbid sort of way. It was like watching someone preparing to rip off a band-aid.

“I’ve…made a lot of terrible choices in my life. That’s not to say you are one of them,” Erin adds quickly like she’s attempting to disarm a bomb but can’t decide which wire to cut. “But it’s the truth. Growing up…well…you know those stories almost better than Abby, and circumstances like that leave a lot of doubt behind. A lot of doubt I internalized. Was I crazy? If I was, was I only looking for attention? Was I good enough for Abby? Was I good enough to graduate? Was I good enough to get a doctorate in particle physics? Was I good enough for a position at Columbia? So many questions and doubts and it just never ends. Even when something works out the way I want it to, I worry somewhere along the way I’m going to mess up and lose it all. It’s like my life is a house of cards. I run around checking the stability but there’s nothing to stop a strong gust of wind, or even a misplaced breath, from bringing it down.”

Somewhere in the middle of her speech, Erin turns in profile to the engineer, forearms resting on her thighs, hands rubbing nervously together.

“So I do everything in my power to make sure that house of cards doesn’t fall. I bend over backward and forget sometimes that I’m human and fallible and that the people around me are the same. I’ve never been good at admitting my own faults…or maybe I’m too good at admitting them to the point I self-deprecate. I can’t tell which anymore, and that only repeats the cycle of doubt. So here I am caught in a wheel I can’t escape. Except when I’m with you.”

Erin takes a breath, hardly aware Holtzmann has been holding her breath, eyes wide. This wasn’t their normal train of conversation, and that unnerved her. 

“When I’m with you,” the physicist begins again, quieter this time, almost meek, “the noise stops. The doubt goes away. It’s like, for a moment, you’re my buoy. I can finally drag my head above water and breathe. I can see the sky and the horizon, if I look long enough. I know my therapist would tell me I have attachment issues, and that I use my relationships for validation purposes. I can’t make my own self-esteem, so I rely on others to help prop me up. And that’s not healthy, but it’s who I am…who I became over the years. I work…so hard to keep the doubt at bay, but sometimes, even when I’m in your arms, it creeps in again. I heart it whispering …horrible things, and I can’t help but listen. I try not to. I try to block it out, but there’s only so much you can take before the voices start to win. And I know, _I know_ , I don’t have to prove myself to you in order to be with you. There’s not a ‘you must be this cool or beautiful or smart to be with Holtzmann’ limit I have to reach, but I feel like there is. I feel like we’re two completely different, incompatible people who have somehow found a way to coincided peacefully around one another, but at some point that balance will shift and I’ll lose you. And I’m not sure I could handle…”

Erin almost jumps when her watery eyes refocus and Holtz is less than five inches from her face, crouched on the floor in front of her. Only when the other woman clears the tears from Erin’s cheeks with her thumbs does the brunette realize she started to cry. Her initial instinct is to draw back—this wasn’t about her and here she was making it about her—but Holtz won’t let her go, hands cupping Erin’s face.

“Baby, stop,” the younger woman sooths, her non-swollen eye holding the physicist’s gaze. “It’s okay. I understand.”

“It’s not,” Erin sucks in sharply. “None of this is okay, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry I get jealous seeing you flirt with other women. I’m sorry I feel inadequate sometimes. I’m sorry I can’t fix what’s wrong with me. And I’m sorry I drove you to getting hurt tonight because I can’t convey my emotions like a proper human.”

The floodgates open, and Erin’s powerless to stop them. She didn’t want to do this right now. Her intention was to talk sensibly with her girlfriend and try to help her understand the root of the issues that kept cropping up between them. But somewhere along the way the conversation became one-sided, and then the tears came.

“Seeing you like this. I feel like I’m responsible. That I drove you there. I’m so, so sorry!” Erin chokes, tucking into herself, hand over her mouth.

Bruises or not, Holtzmann reacts quickly and wraps herself around her partner, holding her tight even as she disintegrates. This wasn’t what she wanted tonight. She’d wanted to get her frustration out through blood, sweat, and pain then come home and lay in the numbness until the world felt right again. But the engineer had forgotten she now shared her world with another. Erin loved her, and while the concept wasn’t foreign what accompanied love—the caring, the overanalyzing, the anxiety—certainly was.

“No,” Holtzmann says sharply, like she’s reprimanding a disobedient pet. The tone of the reproach makes Erin blanch, which in turn makes Holtz wince and readjust. “No. You don’t get to use what I did tonight as a way to punish yourself. This was all me. I’ve done this since before I met Abby. It’s an old habit.”

“But you were angry because of me,” Erin whispers into the crook of her girlfriend’s arm.

“Yes,” Holtzmann agrees gently, placing a kiss atop the physicist’s head. “But what I choose to do with that anger is on me.”

Erin nods like she understands—which she does, in a way. Everyone has their own way of dealing with anger. Patty liked to swear a lot and stomp around. Abby liked to listen to loud, angry music and maybe throw a few things if they were “breakable appropriate”. Erin paced and fumed unless she was righteously angry, then she would pick a fight with anything with a pulse. And Holtzmann. Most of the time the engineer was jovial to the point of it seeming unnatural, but when stress got the better of her she heads into the alley and breaks things. It only made sense that if that frustration hit a high note and she couldn’t decompress the blonde would look for other ways to vent.

After a silent span of heartbeats, Erin dries her eyes and sits up. She’d come up here with a job to do, damn it—even if it had taken Patty physically pushing her up the stairs—and she wasn’t about to let that be derailed by any of her internal issues. Not when the process of patching her girlfriend could fill the void left behind by their silence.

Holtzmann didn’t put up a fight when the physicist eases her back onto the bed and begins wordlessly dressing her more visible wounds. Holtz tries her hardest not to wince or flinch when Erin secures one of the deeper lacerations on her forehead with styptic powder and butterfly tape. The cut across the bridge of her swollen nose gets a Hello Kitty band-aid, prompting a silly half-smile from the engineer. But neither woman’s smile lasts long, both falling back into pregnant silence.

“There are...pieces of my mind that won’t mend no matter what I do,” Holtzmann says in a stilted manner, wrestling to find the right words as she breaks the silence. Erin pauses her rifling through the medical kit and looks up. The engineer shifts nervously, the thumb of her right hand worrying her Screw-U necklace. “I can’t—don’t think like most people do. I’m not neurotypical,” she husks a shallow laugh at her own joke. “Not telling you anything you don’t already know. My mind breaks things down differently. Like everyone’s running on DC current and here I am flipping back and forth with an AC current. Sometimes it’s too fast for even me, and when the static—the noise—gets too much I have to find a way to shut it up. Boom! Lightning strike.”

Holtzmann flexes her fingers, knuckles shinny with antiseptic. “The things I do don’t make sense to others, but they make sense to me. Like tonight. I know it’s dangerous, but it…gets through the chatter in my head. Maybe I’m just burning off enough energy to think straight. Maybe it’s the adrenaline. I don’t know, but its helps even when it hurts. Kind of fucked up, yeah?”

Erin watches her girlfriend closely but quietly, letting the younger woman get her thought out. Holtz sits with her legs crossed, fiddling with her hands and doing her best not to look up. She always vocalized better when she wasn’t looking someone directly in the face. At least when the conversation turned serious like this.

“I know I’m broken. I acknowledge that. Damaged goods, they would say.” The engineer taps the side of her head with her index finger to drive her point home. “I don’t mean to be like this, and I’m sorry we keep getting wires crossed. That _I_ keep getting my wires crossed. I’m shit at reading between the lines sometimes even though Patty says I pretty much exist there. I don’t pick up on normal cues, and I let the pressure build to the point of explosion without a proper ventilation technique.”

  Sensing the tearful sniff before it happened, Erin carefully crawls up beside her girlfriend and takes her head gently between her hands, kissing her bruised forehead and hairline. Holtz turns—as much as she could—into Erin and rests against her chest, salty dampness cutting trails down her face.

“We’re both a mess,” the engineer hiccups, ghosting a smile and dragging her arm under her nose to clear away any lingering mucus.

Back against the wall, Erin nods, carefully threading her fingers through Holtz’s damp tresses. “Yep, we really are. Two peas in a pod.”

“I hate peas. Pick a different veggie.”

“They’re good for you,” Erin snorts playfully.

“They’re little green balls of tasteless mush. I’d rather eat slime.”

“Really?” the physicist deadpans, leaning down so she can look the younger woman in the eyes—or eye, the right was pretty much swollen shut by now. “You’re going to make that crack to the queen of slimings? I’ve had that stuff in my mouth before. I’d rather chew glass.”

“Fine,” Holtz huffs, faking a pout. “Then I’d rather eat you.”

“Oh, so you won’t eat peas but you will partake in cannibalism. I see how it is,” Erin teases, feeling herself relaxing the longer she sits with Holtz against her chest.

“What can I say? I like ‘em tall and lean. Makes better jerky.”

“Ew, Holtz…ew.”

“Hey, Erin?” Holtzmann says a few minutes later, voice pinched. Her girlfriends answers with a sleepy hum, cracking open an eye. “Would you kill me if I asked you to go get me some aspirin and an ice pack. Kind of…feeling the stretch of things, if you catch my drift.”

Erin sits up, not realizing she’d started to snooze, but it was, after all, almost three in the morning. “All things considered, I should make you get it. But…” she holds up a forestalling hand, “I guess I could be persuaded. What do I get as payment?”

“Would a kiss suffice and a sexy I.O.U? I mean, I could try to go down on you, but seeing as I’m half-blind right now I might—“

Holtz’s ramblings come to a close when Erin’s lips meet hers in a slow and gentle kiss. Letting her head drop back onto the pillow under her, the engineer closes her one good eye, calloused fingers searching and finding Erin’s face and tracing over her jawline. When they break apart the physicist has a goofy smile on her face and Holtz looked like she was floating on three shades of bliss.

“Have I ever told you kissing you was magic?”

“I’ll be right back.”

Rubbing feeling back into her nerve-numb butt, Erin makes it into the hall before a hand wraps around her upper arm stops her dead, almost pulling a scream from her throat. Twisting around she’s met with a smiling Abby who just happens to be holding the two objects Erin had set off to retrieve.

“So?” the researcher prompts, handing over her pilfered spoils to a scowling brunette. “Is everything…”

“I think we’re getting there,” Erin admits after her heart rate slows to a reasonable pound. “There’s still a lot of road to cover, but at least we’re both moving in the same direction.”

“I knew you’d figure it out,” Abby smiles and wraps her best friend in a tight hug.

“Thank you for listening,” the physicist mumbles into Abby’s shoulder, reciprocating the embrace just as tightly and feeling warmth bloom in her chest. She wasn’t exaggerating. Erin knew she and Holtz had a ways to go in terms of working differences and communication out. They would have good days and bad, but at least, for now, things seemed about as peaceful as they were going to get.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reviews let me know how I'm doing and gives me the gumption to write more. =) Please and thank you.


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